


there's a possibility hanging over our heads the shape of the stars bursting in the sky

by inklovish



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Babies, Coffee Shops, F/M, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Gen, I Ship It, I love these kids, Late at Night, Music, Musician!Josh, Musician!Maya, Not Beta Read, Snapshots, Snowball Fight, Stolen Moments, Topanga's Bakery, they
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23780914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inklovish/pseuds/inklovish
Summary: Maya stares at his outstretched hand, eyes blue and wide, this small human being with a loud voice and sharp words struck speechless."With--me?" she asks after a moment, disbelieving, and Josh keeps his offered hand up with a confident smile that doesn't betray the knot in his stomach."Always with you."(Maya and Josh, captured in moments leading up to the end of the long game.)
Relationships: Maya Hart & Riley Matthews, Maya Hart/Josh Matthews, Riley Matthews & Farkle Minkus
Comments: 12
Kudos: 61





	there's a possibility hanging over our heads the shape of the stars bursting in the sky

**Author's Note:**

> I'm aware this isn't my best work, so no need to throw it in my face--but I hope you enjoy the little moments anyway. If you're a long-time subscriber you should probably refer to the end notes after this.

someday. a promise.

"I know you're out there, and--I'm out there, too." He looks to her with apprehension etched into his features, still an underlying terror that she'll say she would rather stay in that weird limbo with Lucas than she would in this feeling that Josh always has around her, this comfort that leaves them both warm and rested.

Since he'd moved in with his brother, Josh hadn't expected much--he'd wanted a close relationship with his niece and nephew, and they're now the younger brother and sister he'd never had--and so it's safe to say he'd expected to be thrown into the hustle and bustle of New York _alongside_ the Matthews and Harts.

What he'd found instead, with Maya especially, was some strange sort of peace he'd never known so intimately before (even if she was often the loudest person in their group of family members and close friends). It was the kind that let him fall asleep with her in the room, no thought of who was watching or judging; it was the kind that sang gentle lullabies at night and sang along to the classics in the day; it was the kind that brought Josh to a realization that gave him more calm and understanding than he'd expected from falling in _like._

"So, what do you think?" he asks, and she moves quietly, shifts a little bit as he holds out a hand in some reference to the first months he'd spent with them. "Someday?"

Maya stares at his outstretched hand, eyes blue and wide, this small human being with a loud voice and sharp words struck speechless.

"With--me?" she asks after a moment, disbelieving, and Josh keeps his offered hand up with a confident smile that doesn't betray the knot in his stomach.

"Always with you," he says.

Her smile is slow, but it is like the beginning of a sunrise--quiet, some dawn light, before the world bursts into color around them and she is there, whole and present and taking his hand with a soft, "Someday."

They shake on it. (And continue shaking.)

Josh nods. "Let go."

Maya's smile cracks into something whole and bright. "Someday."

❂

limbs tangled together under coffee tables and mugs of hot cocoa wrapped in cold hands.

" _Two_ counterfeit tuna melts and big ol' mugs of hot cocoa," Maya announces as she arrives at their table, and Josh shakes his head as he looks up.

"They haven't gotten the tuna melts right yet?"

"Oh, they have, that's just their name now. It's too late to go back." She grins at him as she sits down, sliding Josh's plate over to him. "How bad's that psychology report going, scale of one to ten with ten being _I'd like to sell all my clothes please?"_

"Ten. This does not slap, it's not great, will bang my head against a wall when the chance arises--" he stops when she throws a pinch of tuna at him, nose crinkling as it lands on his cheek. "Please save me from psychology."

Maya makes a face at him, and her hands slip from the table to reach for her backpack. "I do have something for you..."

Josh groans, "On another hand, why do you keep giving me things when you know how bad I feel when I can't make anything to save my life?"

"Because I want you to have efficient and helpful things to help you in life and stuff, obviously," she responds, still rummaging in her backpack. "Knowing me is just the gift that keeps on giving. Here--" Maya sits up with a lump of fabric in her hands, then picks it up and spreads it out to show that it's a misshapen-looking beanie, hand-crocheted.

"Maya--"

"I know you wanted one for your hair but the one that I saw in the store was, like, _ridiculously_ expensive, so I just went to Grammy and asked her to teach me how to crochet and I know how to make beanies now. This is, like, my seventh try. Just take it."

Josh shakes his head, but reaches out a hand to take the beanie. He tugs it on with a small smile that grows as he runs his hands over the careful stitches Maya had put into it. "Thank you, Maya."

"Of course, Boing," she says, meeting his gaze with bright eyes, and turns to her plate with a shit-eating grin. "Now let's eat these counterfeit tuna melts before they get cold."

❂

tired but still singing and studying all the same with laughter in voices and gentle words floating in the air like a content sigh;

"And if _you don't love me now--_ "

"You won't ever love me again," Josh obliges as Maya points at him with her pencil.

She finishes, "I can still hear you saying you will _never break the chain,_ " and thus rolls around on Riley's bed with a _'deow nyow nyow_ ' along with the music.

Josh laughs, obligingly turning the music louder when she starts _nyow-nyow_ -ing even more, and turns back to write out the answer to his homework problem.

"Josh," Maya says over the music and he turns around in his chair to face her, where she's frowning at her Algebra book. "What does any of this mean?"

"You need help with your problem?"

"Yes. _Please._ "

Josh takes the offered book and examines the problem she's working on. "Did you check your signs already?"

Maya blinks--then with a sheepish look, reaches out for the book again.

❂

running during snowball fights in the park and stockpiling snow for attacks, and the snow angels made and laughter shared;

"Joshua _Gabriel_ Matthews--"

Josh continues running, feeling his legs start to burn. If he stops, in this dark night covered with slippery ice, he's dead.

"I'm going--to-- _murder you_ \--"

The voice is getting closer. He's so dead--Josh keeps running, huffing out a breath that turns into a gasp and makes him falter and trip, and the enemy barrels into him not even two seconds later. " _No!"_ he shouts, breathlessly as their hands come down upon him--

Maya starts tickling him relentlessly, sprawled out over him but still in reach of his armpits and stomach. "You little--"

"I'm not--" Josh wiggles as she keeps tickling him, "Maya, no!"

"You shouldn't have put snow in my hoodie---"

"I regret nothing!" He catches her hands and rolls them over so that he's caging her to the snow, both of them panting.

Josh stares; here, tonight, she's glowing in the light of the park lamps, her eyes dark in the night and cheeks flushed. Her mouth is a serious line, chest heaving as she reaches up with one hand--

Maya shoves snow down his shirt and slides away, cackling.

" _Maya!"_

"Retaliation!" she calls back, already so far away, "By the time you get here I'm going to have a fort!"

"Mine's going to be bigger--"

"Mine's going to have a _flag!"_

❂

days spent from sunrise to sunset at the beach, building sand forts and playing in the ocean, ending the day on the boardwalk with linked hands and lemonade and churros;

"Hah."

Josh glares at Maya, but he's pretty sure he just looks like a wet puppy to her--she glances over and ruffles his hair affectionately, looking out at where the ocean meets the sand.

"I told you my fort would last longer."

He sticks his tongue out at her, but only succeeds in making her smile (though that's a pretty big win, honestly). "Mine was _cooler.will_ take my jacket back," he threatens, and Maya leans back against the bench, still slurping. Her smile is _too_ smug now.

She finishes slurping with a grin. "Just admit it, Josh--"

"I admit nothing."

"Not even that you love me?"

Josh's gaze flickers up to her, and he clarifies immediately, "I admit to nothing except that."

Maya scrunches up her face, looking for all the world like she's trying not to be flustered and failing terrifically. "Well--we should probably--"

"Get back to everyone?" he suggests; she nods, but tugs on his shirtsleeve as they go to join the groups of people on the boardwalk.

"Can we get churros, first?"

"Anything for you, gorgeous," he replies easily and laces his fingers through hers.

❂

the first time he says _i love you,_ under the stars of a new york sky;

"Josh?" Maya asks, looking over at him as they start shouting, the city bright under their eyes.

Josh feels the blood rush to his face, but he can't stop himself when the words tumble from his mouth as if he didn't discover them just thirty seconds ago-- "I love you, Maya."

She inhales sharply, searching his gaze--he knows why. It's--she'd said _I love you_ a month ago, when they'd been sitting in front of the campfire in Texas; she'd told him she loved him honestly and sincerely, and Josh hadn't known how to say it back.

"I love you, more than I have words for, I love you brighter than anything, and I--it's almost the New Year, Maya, and I _love you._ "

Maya takes his hand, a beaming smile on her lips, and the rest of New York alongside them looks out into the city with eyes for the brightest kind of future.

❂

the letters he writes to her. the drawings she gives to him. the vulnerability they share with each other;

 _Philadelphia is familiar and homey. I've missed it; Mom and Dad are some of the best people I know. I don't think I could know how to do anything without them,_ his letter reads, scrawled out haphazardly in Josh's disaster handwriting. _I still miss you all, though. Sending a kiss and a squeeze. I'll be back before you know it._

Maya smiles down at the paper, where Josh has left his imprint in little words and crinkled paper, and finishes folding up her own papers--a sketch of Auggie and Riley sleeping under the same blanket after the younger of the two had gotten a nightmare, one portrait of her mother looking tired, another of Topanga and Cory grading papers and working on court cases after-hours.

 _They miss you too,_ she writes on the back of the wad of papers. _Sending a kiss and a pinch. Take that._

She presses her lips to the paper, as is their tradition, then a little pinch that creases the paper slightly, and slides it into the envelope. She takes up the letter from Josh, folding it up the way it had been before, and puts it into her shoebox of letters.

❂

the song they play anytime they have an instrument and the both of them together, no matter where;

"A GUITAR!"

"MAYA!"

"And Josh," Farkle finishes with a laugh as Zay and Riley high-five in their synchronization. Maya scrunches up her nose at them as Josh picks up his guitar.

"Wanna make some music, gorgeous?" Josh asks, dipping his head to place his fingers correctly. He glances up to see her nod--even if she didn't want to, she doesn't think she could ever resist this song--and looks back to the guitar in his lap.

"He-ey, he-e-e-e-ey, he-e-e-e-ey," Maya sings, testing out her voice, and Josh carries on the song for the first verses, a smile on his lips and a bright spark of light in him. When they get to the chorus Maya comes in, and their harmony is something beautiful and a little imperfect and something she wouldn't mind having for the whole rest of her life. 

"Hey, soul sister, ain't that mister mister on the radio, stereo, the way you move ain't fair, you know--" Maya drums with every strum of the guitar, and Josh's voice joins hers, "Hey, soul sister, I don't wanna miss a single thing you do-ooooo," they lock gazes with blinding grins, finishing the line with smiles in their voices, "Tonight."

❂

her eighteenth birthday. hands tangled in hair and breathless grins and singing along to songs loudly and without remorse--it is _everything_ and they are in love and nothing truly changes but the fact that they can now love freely. always and forever.

It's eleven in the morning.

Maya laughs as she turns her face up to the sky--they're at a winter retreat and Riley cheers with the countdown. Farkle is walking quietly in front of them, a wide smile on his face as Riley sings a rendition of a One Direction song that Maya faintly remembers making Riley promise to sing at her eighteenth birthday when she was eleven. Topanga and Cory are talking to Lauren's son as they walk; Lucas and Zay are somewhere ahead on the path.

"Maya, sing it!" Riley points grandly, laughing; Maya shakes her head, but shouts the lyrics alongside her best friend--

"AND ALL I CAN DO IS SAY THESE ARMS WERE MADE FOR HOLDING YOU, WOAH-OH-OH-OH," they sing in discordant harmony, laughter spilling into their voices as Riley turns around and links arms with Farkle.

Josh hums along, "I wanna love how you made me feel when we were eighteen," and Maya nudges him, grinning.

Josh's hand is swinging with hers as they walk; he's been looking up at the sky in open-eyed wonder, too, and Maya thinks (not for the first time this week) that he's her soulmate. Not without his faults of course, but--he loves art and writing and music, some of the same music she does. He loves nature and the sky and running, loves the Matthews and everything about them, _is_ a Matthews--there's nothing more from him that Maya could even want.

Except for maybe _this_ \--the moment when Josh stops, looks down at her with a blinding smile, and leans down to touch his lips to hers.

Maya laces her hands together behind his back and tugs him closer, smiling--it's only a moment more of gentle, slow kissing before Maya's grinning too hard to keep kissing him. She leans her head against his chest, breathless, when they break apart.

"I love you, Joshua Gabriel Matthews," she says out loud, tests the words and his name on her tongue for the first time beyond walls and quiet corners. "Maybe more than anything in the entire world."

She feels a kiss dropped to the top of her head and Josh whispers, because he's the kind of person who's said it a million times over and says it differently every time: "I love you as long as the sun shines--"

"And beyond?"

"And beyond. Always."

She leans up to kiss him, and the Long Game comes to an end.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey you guys! By the time I finish this fic it'll be a month since I've written this note, so just wanted to say a couple of things:
> 
> One, I think I'm going to take a break from the Girl Meets World fandom (maybe until summer?). It's been three years (both since it ended and since I started writing, I think) of fics and meeting wonderful people, but I truly think I just need to step back from the fandom for a minute. I might come back to update flames winding their way around every once in a while, but we'll see how that goes. In the meantime I'll be trying to stitch together a few sunlit scenes from my scrapped Joshaya roadtrip fic.  
> 
> 
> Two: if you're wondering where to go and what Joshaya fics to read if you haven't already, I've always really loved these. They're ordered in least-to-most favorite, with my top favorite Joshaya fic being number one.
> 
> 4\. the "Catalyst defined in a relationship" series by muffin_reverie is really well-done (it has maybe four or five works? I'm not sure if I've read it all). I think it's an exploration of Josh and Maya's relationship and how they work around each other.
> 
> 3\. Girl Meets the New Year Redux by disturbtheuniverse is a really good fic that I came across sometime a couple months ago--it's a bit of what the writer thought would happen if the actor for Josh didn't get into a motorcycle accident and Josh was actually there for the New Year.
> 
> 2\. Yeah, I Know by clandestinerabbit is incredible. I loved reading it, getting a bit of a look into Josh and Shawn's relationship while also finding a new perspective on Josh and Maya's relationship.
> 
> 1\. you won't ever be alone (wait for me to come home). by michellejjones is by far my favorite fic that I've read of the Joshaya relationship. It's just so well written and I loved reading about them and their friends and family and the dancing dilemmas. I'd call this the best out of all of them.
> 
> Again, thank you for sticking around or tuning in to read this fic and author's note. I hope you enjoyed reading the fic!


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